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The FDA has some big verdicts lined up in the second quarter, including one for a closely watched obesity drug that many anticipate will further intensify competition in weight loss.
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Overall, the top 16 largest pharmaceutical companies spent $159 billion on research and development in 2025, compared to $165 billion the year prior. Here’s where all that cash went at companies like Johnson & Johnson, Amgen and Pfizer.
Trace Neuroscience, a member of BioSpace’s NextGen Class of 2026, has learned from the success of Biogen’s Qalsody and aims to bring more treatment options to the ALS community.
FDA
Draft guidance, issued by the FDA last week, could remove ambiguity and uncertainty that may have so far limited uptake of new approach methodologies, experts told BioSpace, particularly emphasizing the agency’s recommendations around defining NAMs’ regulatory purpose.
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While requests by government officials for anonymity when speaking to the media are nothing new, the practice attracts more scrutiny when the Department for Health and Human Services has pledged a commitment to “radical transparency.”
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BioSpace’s 2026 U.S. Life Sciences Employment Outlook examines the state of the biopharma workforce amid ongoing funding pressure, elevated layoffs and cautious hiring sentiment, while highlighting early signals of stabilization and cautious optimism for the year ahead.
After a patient safety signal and then death, the FDA in October 2025 placed holds on two of the company’s CRISPR programs for hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis.
Roche said the Phase II results help build the case for advancing CT-388 into late-stage testing, which is set to get underway this quarter.
The cornerstone of the deal is SIM0709, which Simcere designed to target both TL1A and IL-23, crucial players in facilitating inflammation. Boehringer Ingelheim will advance the asset for inflammatory bowel diseases.
While Baseline Therapeutics declined to disclose its starting capital, the startup said it will use the funds to push its GLP-1 asset BT-001 into late-stage development, with two trials planned this year.
Nader Pourhassan, who led CytoDyn for nearly 10 years, was convicted in December 2024 of misleading investors regarding the biotech’s investigational COVID-19 and HIV drug, which artificially inflated its share price.
JPM
With the biopharma industry performing better of late, analysts, executives and other industry watchers are “cautiously optimistic”—a term heard all over the streets of San Francisco at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier this month.
Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Merck are contributing drug ingredients as part of their deals with the White House but are keeping many of the terms of their agreements private.
True inspection readiness is about the integrity of a company’s entire system.
Investors are apparently taking bets on when Revolution will be acquired. A handful of pharmas could be interested as Merck backs off.